Nursing School Adventures

I used to be an LVN. A long time ago for about a year. Since then I've moved on, but I never really let go, not knowing what to do w/ what I already completed. Surely all that Army schooling was not for naught?

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Enough ranting about MyNursingLab. I have decided that the topic now bores me. It's obvious that whoever created it has no desire to fix whatever is broken. They only want to make the new version and charge people even more money for garbage. Unless students wise up and do anything about it, they will simply have to consent to their money being taken by people who provide sub-standard quality. If that's the way the students want it, that's how it's going to stay.

On to better things... today marks the last Performance Checklist in my Nursing Assessment Class.
It is a LONG checklist, but it's good to know that by tonight I will be free to just study for the final which is a month away.

For those interested in the checklists that we use in the head to toe assessment, I've provided links below. Ask me for stuff if you are interested.

I would post my video here, but for purposes of maintaining confidentiality, I will only provide it to students who want to see it. A password will be required to view the video and I will only post it temporarily.

I did manage to find some good websites and youtube videos about nursing assessments: I will provide links here in the near future (translation: maybe next week or so).

So far, this has been an overall positive experience, occasionally, I have enjoyed it, except for the griping about MyNursingLab. I might even have to consider taking a real pharmacology class because now I am really confused with this darn Adams book. And to think that I expected and really wanted it to be a good experience, it has left a bad taste in my mouth. I love pharmacology and really enjoy learning about drugs and their effects on physiology, since after all, I am a physio major and immensely enjoyed physiology. If I had the money and didn't have to earn a living, I would get my PhD in Physiology except you can't make $$ on that these days unless you have published a zillion papers and become someone's research slave for about 6-10 yrs. If money were no object, that's what I would do, but then reality kicks in... I want my kids to go to college, be high achievers in high school and also be responsible, caring and thoughtful individuals, so it is no longer about what I want.

I would give anything to be able to also stay home w/ the kids and teach them things and devote a lot of time to developing their science knowledge, encouraging math skills and also encouraging reading. I try to do what I can, and have to rely on school to do the rest. Once again, if money were no object -- I'd spend most of my life doing just that.

The distance learning program at Indiana State University is not as good as actually attending classes, but given my situation, it is a darn good program that I think has the potential to help many LVNs get their BSN degrees. In so many ways, I am thankful to have found this program. I hope I will be able to finish the 11 classes that I need to finish.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

I received an email last week from My Nursing Lab. I just about fell over in my chair when I read the email. They addressed me as "Professor", and asked if I would be interested in reviewing the next version of My Nursing Lab.

Is this a joke? I thought...I was even madder than I could ever imagine myself to be. The only thing I had done was try to contact them several times through the feedback link of their website, and now suddenly I am a professor? LOL

Anyway, I responded that I was not a professor -- just a student who had access to more than one textbook, hence being able to pinpoint which part of their textbook & accompanying software was incorrect. It certainly wasn't that hard.

Then it turned into a business proposition -- except I could not accept the offer because no way was I going to spend time looking at that stuff when I know that it makes me sooooo mad to think that they would be selling a product that had more errors than swiss cheese has holes.

HA!

Oh well -- I pointed out their errors, told them to go fix it and not be in such a rush to charge money next time. We'll see if they listen...

Saturday, March 13, 2010

More chapters to deal with in this Pharmacology for Nurses 2nd edition book by Adams, Holland and Bostwick. If this is truly the quality of the textbooks these days, heaven help us all. No wonder health care is in such disarray.

I read another article, which is even scarier -- it talks about all the flawed statistics that scientists use. Mind you, the method that ALL of the so-called "Evidence-Based" medicine appears to be banking on is based on hypothesis testing.

Friday, March 12, 2010

You be the judge...here's another classic faux pas from Pearson/My Nursing Lab

I don't know about you, but if I had Alzheimer's, I would definitely NOT want improvement in my memory loss.... I woud only want improvement in my memory, but not my memory loss. I would like for my memory loss to stay lost...

Chap 20 page 270 says:

"Donepezil and memantine are approved for the treatment of progressive AD and are marketed under the brand name Aricept."

Uh....sorry, but Aricept is made by Eisai, marketed by Pfizer. Memantine is made by Forest Pharmaceuticals. But only in the world of Pearson and Prentice Hall is there a combination drug of these 2, marketed under the trade name Aricept, and I bet they will improve your memory loss.

Good grief -- this next one has 3 typos in the same question:

The best part was reading "I should not take this drug if YOU have liver disease"....!

I ran into a problem w/ My Nursing Lab one of the first few times that I used it. Over time, as I have used it more and more, I have found errors in the pretest and post-test questions. Mind you, this pre-test and post-test are supposed to be tools to measure your progress. In theory, you take a pre-test that tells you which parts of the book or which sections you need to review or work on. Then, you take a post-test which hopefully shows that you learned something.

Except -- if you find a bunch of errors...you just learn that the thing is not worth the $75 out of the $117 that you paid for it.

OK, so maybe I'm a little harsh -- everybody makes mistakes... everybody has those days (as Hannah Montana says!). But gee -- if I find a problem w/ several chapters, I think I have a right to be a tad annoyed. Can you imagine reading a Harry Potter book and finding out that they omitted one of every 5 pages? How about watching a movie and finding out that they forgot to put the ending in? Or better yet -- how about getting a house built and finding out that the pipes are missing? How about a teacher teaching you chapter 5 and giving an exam on Chapter 6? Does that still fall under "everybody makes mistakes"? How about the DMV failing you on a driving test because they had the wrong answer key? Mistakes? Hmmmmm.

OK, so you be the judge - I am posting the errors for all to see.

Chapter 5 had this as an exercise. Check out the 3rd question in the series:

??? How did we get 24 as the correct answer? The correct answer is 18.0 (3 half lives) but the system marks that answer as wrong and it lists the correct answer as 24.0 hrs. Mindboggling, I know.

And that's not it . Below is another moment of brilliance. The question isn't even all there. (Saliva isn't an effect, last time I checked!)

And it goes on...

Yet another is error below. You will see that even though the thing marked my answer incorrectly, the Rationale is exactly the same as my answer and anyone w/ half a brain knows that none of the other anwers make sense.

I know there are more. But these are the ones I've found and so far I am already too mad to worry about the others. I didn't even bother to review anything else.

I want my money back. I really do.
I hope nobody else has to endure this kind of silliness. For $75 they should invest in a proofreader.